


Daffodils Dancing Above the Diaphragm

by wrothmothking



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 16:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17005542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrothmothking/pseuds/wrothmothking
Summary: Harvey loves him, God help him, loves him so much he can't stop the yellow petals erupting from his throat.





	Daffodils Dancing Above the Diaphragm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunaddicted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/gifts).



The one thing that could be worse than being partners with James Gordon is _being partners_ with James Gordon. Harvey's seen him burn through enough relationships to know how it goes. Falling in love with him would be the dumbest, craziest mistake of his life, and while he's never exactly been a paragon of mental health, he has retained more of his marbles than the average Gothamite.

But here he was, best friends with Gotham's white knight--turning grayer by the day--and laughing at his smart jokes and stupid life choices. Laughing so much he coughs, and chokes, and Jim may have eyes like a hawk but Harvey is a born master at sleight of hand. Jim had a full plate as it was, no sense letting him obsess over a bloodied handkerchief.

"You okay, Harvey?"

"Fine. 'Tis the season."

"I told you to get a flu shot."

"Yeah, well...Too late now."

They weren't supposed to have secrets anymore. There was enough guilt and disappointment to go around without another burden straining their partnership. Harvey hoped his death would distract from this last betrayal.

He needed another drink. Flagging down the bartender, he ordered-

"Just water, thanks."

"Whoa, Jimbo, messing with a man's alcohol intake is gonna get you punched."

But Jim was flashing his pearly whites, and if there was a person strong enough to resist that in the bar they had no mind to interfere. So, Ginny got him a water.

"You'll survive," Jim said to his scowl, not sounding at all sympathetic.

Harvey would be more annoyed, had the concern not been so endearing. Maybe he wouldn't've been annoyed at all, had his chest not burned so fiercely. His lungs and throat felt like they'd been scraped raw with sandpaper--from the inside. Every breath, every word, every swallow ignited the pain to a whole new level. The water may not irritate him as much going down, but whiskey would have dulled the pain--rather, his awareness of it, and of his impending death.

Yes, back to that; it was sort of difficult to keep out of mind with Jim sat beside him, watching him carefully through his peripheral vision. For a detective, he was as subtle as a brick to the face. Harvey thought about calling him out on it, but after decades of life he was finally coming around to the conclusion that fighting could never fix anything. That once he sobered up from the adrenaline--and perhaps from a few beers--he would go back to feeling like shit, only this time with a black eye to agonize over _in addition_ to everything else.

Really. It wasn't just because it was Jim doing the bothering; flowers or no flowers, Harvey wasn't about to go soft on the idiot.

"You sure you're okay, Harvey? You look a little pale."

"Look who's talking. I swear this city hasn't gotten decent sun in a decade."

The way Jim was looking at him..Harvey wanted to hurl. No, shit, he was going to-

By the grace of God, he made it to the sink.

"Harvey?!"

"Christ, Jim, _privacy_."

"Shut up."

Hands, soft despite the scars and callouses, pawed at his hair and pulled it back. Harvey suddenly, and violently, regretted not washing it that morning. He couldn't see Jim's face, not bent over and sputtering, but he was glad to wonder rather than face condemnation for his oily locks.

Daffodils littered the basin, drenched in a fine mixture of whiskey and stomach acid. While he was grateful for it, it was...concerning, to realize he hadn't eaten yet. He could've sworn it was today he'd tried that new food truck on Eleventh. Would've bet a month's rent on it.

"Ugh." Letting his head press into the cold, hard metal of the faucet, Harvey panted and tried to get his breath back. "Thanks, Jim."

"Anytime. You good?" There was a brittle quality to his voice, there, on those last two words. Harvey liked it as well as he did Jim taking his hands back: not at all.

"Said I was fine, didn't I?"

"That was before you puked your sober guts out."

Grunting, Harvey turned to face him, making sure to keep the sink out of view as he did so. Strands of hair stuck to his face, wet and unpleasant. Jim handed him a paper towel.

"What did you insist on me coming out here for? Staging some kind of intervention?"

Jim grimaced. "Sure. Here goes: your doctor problems are going to get you killed, and you should go to the hospital."

"Already been." He regretted the admission the moment it came. The surprise flashing in Jim's eyes was not worth the next question.

"What they say?"

Harvey groaned. "Jim, can we do this later? It stinks in here, and I have to clean this up."

As much as he clearly didn't want to, Jim allowed the reprieve.

Alone in the bathroom, Harvey took his time, finding comfort in the quiet.

Daffodils were funny little flowers. They meant regard, chivalry, rebirth, joy, new beginnings, eternal life. And unrequited love, and misfortune. Harvey'd known he was screwed before the sickness caused by unrequited love matched him with a flower _representing_ unrequited love, but damn. Eternal life made it a joke, and misfortune served as the final nail on his coffin. He and Jim had both had enough of that to last half a dozen lifetimes; at least this time, Harvey could hoard it all to himself. Just one more lie, than wait for curtains' close.

Jim deserved a better man--better person--than him, anyhow. Someone a little less grayed out, with a few fewer vultures circling.

He perked up as Harvey left the restroom, half-swiveling on the bar stool to face him, every line in his body screaming anxious anticipation. Harvey grabbed his coat and hat and kept on walking.

Jim stayed quiet at his side for about a block, then: "That serious, huh?"

"Yeah." The symptoms were getting harder to hide. The stress was eating him alive. They did say the best lies had truth to them, right? "You ever heard of Hanahaki disease?"

Jim stopped.

Harvey did, too.

"I heard it could be removed through surgery."

"Surgery also takes the feelings you have for that special someone. At the time of it."

"Funny. You didn't strike me as a romantic," Jim retorted, teeth bared.

" _At the time of it,_ Jim."

"There have been less than ten reported cases of Hanahaki coming back, Harvey."

"Because the people who get it usually get the hell out of dodge after, but that isn't an option for me. I don't--I hate who I am when I don't have them in my life, Jim."

"Other people can't be responsible-"

"Will you just shut up and listen?!"

A lady passing by shot them a particularly rude look.

"This person...They're more than my 'what-if', alright? They're...Hell, they're everything. How could I not love them?" Not exactly a stellar speech, but, hey, he wasn't a writer.

Jim's jaw popped. "Who is it?"

"No one you know."

"Really."

"Don't get involved, Jim. Please."

"'Don't get involved'? Harvey, you're dying!"

"Yes, thank you, I understand that quite well! Now, are we going to go get pizza, or is this goodnight?"

Oh boy, Jim was definitely not letting this go.

"You're buying?"

"Seriously, you're making the terminally ill guy pay? What about my kids? It's not like I got a whole lot to leave them as it is."

Jim sighed. His gaze conveyed what he wanted to say just fine.

"What, too soon? Come on, I'm hungry."

He wasn't, really. But it ended the conversation.

The next morning, Harvey called in sick, requesting a long-overdue vacation to get over it. He kept having to repeat himself, because he couldn't stop coughing. The whole morning, and most the afternoon, he waited for Jim to barge in, demanding the answers Harvey'd refused him. No one came. However it made him feel, he was too drained to process. It was certainly a lot.

* * *

Five days. He had five days of peace.

Pennyworth was staring at him, something between pity and disbelief shining in his eyes. No need to question the cause; of course a man of his age and background would put two and two together, seeing the bloodied daffodils littering the bedside waste basket. Lucius treated him much the same as always, if more gently, his touch lingering not in the way of a prospective lover, but in the way a man would pet a half-feral dog he'd found dying on the side of a road, victim of a hit-and-run. Harvey would be irritated by the comparison had it not been so accurate for how he _felt._

He'd not been a careful child, or a careful adult, and over the years he'd grown terribly accustomed to all sorts of pains. The demanding, pressurized ache caressing his skull after a hit to the head. (Or one too many at the bar.) The invasion of a knife into his flesh, and how his muscles would clench at it as it pulled out. The splintering of a bone, the complaint of a bruise--bruised skin, bruised ribs, bruised organs. The various _thuds_ his body made on concrete, carpet, asphalt, gravel, mud, _whatever._

So. To say he was in the worst pain of his life meant he should probably already be dead, for surely this had to be the limit, surely this could not get worse.

The baby billionaire, at least, was an amusing distraction in how much _not a kid_ he desperately pretended to be. He wasn't sure why the boy and butler had shown up. Perhaps they were with Lucius for some other reason, and when he said to make his leave, to take groceries to his sick coworker, they'd invited themselves along out of some sort of obligation. They did technically know each other. Well, _of_ each other, more like. Still, he'd play nice; Bruce was a good kid, Pennyworth--Alfred, a good man, and both of them important to and for Jim.

He was going to need those connections, soon. Nothing drove a man wilder than grief.

Harvey just hoped Jim would actually use them instead of self-isolating and disappearing into Gotham's underbelly. But perhaps he was overestimating his worth.

Alfred served him a bowl of soup--potato, not chicken noodle. Then, with Bruce tucked snug under his arm, left. Despite himself, Harvey found himself missing their company instantly. But he wasn't quite alone, yet.

Lucius gave him an appraising look. Wary and weary. "You realize this is ridiculous."

"Excuse me?"

"You, languishing there in your misery, waiting to die."

"Oh, fuck you."

"No, Harvey, _fuck you,_ " said with such vehemence, Harvey didn't know what to do with it. "Jim is tearing the city apart trying to save your ungrateful ass-"

"Jim is _what_ -"

"And you won't tell him."

With a calm he didn't feel, Harvey placed his bowl on the nightstand.

"Did you?"

"No." Harvey relaxed. "I haven't been able to reach him."

"Shit."

"I'm sure he'd take your call, though."

Harvey scoffed. "Right. And what do I say?"

"The truth. For once."

"Ouch. And here I thought we were friends."

"I am your friend, Harvey. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."

Harvey couldn't help but smile at the soft admission. And, since they were having honesty hour, since Harvey was in enough pain to claim delirium should Lucius try to make a big deal out of it, he said, with mild grouch, "Yeah, I know. Love you, too, Fox."

"Now tell him that."

"It's not that simple."

"Only because you won't let it be."

"I won't have my death on his conscience, Lucius."

"It won't happen like that." Harvey rolled his eyes. "I'm telling you, Harv, Jim loves you."

"Not like that."

"Give him a chance. He deserves to know."

Harvey trained his gaze on the window.

Lucius sighed. "Call me if you need anything."

* * *

Getting out of bed was a feat by itself. His stomach was possessed by a yawning emptiness which radiated weakness throughout him, though it couldn't compare to what was going on in his chest. Layers of blankets weighed him down, tangled around his legs, his torso. His legs had been asleep for hours and were largely unresponsive. His hands shook, failed to grasp the covers.

"Damn it." Christ, it hurt to talk. He should've had Lucius and Alfred help him get to the couch yesterday.

He stopped moving. He was so tired. Fatigued. Lethargic. Exhausted. His mind went dark, for even thinking was beyond him now, as he stared at the ceiling. His eyes roved passed stains, absently noting their existence but not wondering the how and when of it, as he usually did. After a moment, the stark whiteness of the paint as the sunlight hit it, filtered through gaps in white-backed black curtains, became too much, and he closed his eyes, thought to pass some time by sleeping. But sleep wouldn't come.

There was a niggle. A senseless little niggle at the back of his mind, refusing to explain itself even as he prodded it. Harvey scowled.

Then, following a sudden, formless impulse, Harvey dug his elbow into the mattress and threw himself over the edge. "Ow." It did hurt. Everything hurt. Why had he done that? Stupid. At least the blankets had cushioned his fall a bit. Leveling himself up on elbows and knees, he crawled out and tossed his body back against the side of the bed so he was sitting up, ignoring how the metal frame dug sharply into his back.

Good news: his legs were waking up. Bad news: fuckin' _ow_.

Groaning, he pulled himself up using the bed and proceeded to dry heave over the basket. Then, he was coughing, and he couldn't stop, his whole body shaking and shuddering and breaking down as what must've been a half a pound of flowers came out.

"Fuck."

He didn't sit. If he did, Harvey hadn't a clue how he'd get back up again. If he'd be able to.

He wanted coffee.

Using the wall to brace, Harvey made it into the living room. Right in time for his phone to ring. The phone he'd left back in his bedroom, on the nightstand.

It wasn't like he could ignore it, not with his job, his friends. Jim.

Funny. If he hadn't gone back, he'd have missed Jim's last words. Jim would've bled out before the beep. Because he had gone back, it was a telemarketer, rambling on about a student loan Harvey didn't have.

Clutching the phone close, Harvey...

He wanted coffee. He wanted a shower. He wanted Jim.

"Harvey?" he answered, and the fear there made Harvey's heart clench. Made a daffodil bloom in his throat.

Once the coughing abated, he asked, "Can you come over?"

"Jesus, Harvey. You sound like shit...Yeah, give me fifteen."

"Bring coffee."

"Make that twenty."

Harvey pulled on his robe and stumbled his way to the couch. Stabbing at the buttons, he turned the television on to some brainless comedy. No laugh track, thank God.

Jim came barreling in two minutes late and, saying nothing of Harvey's bedraggled state, delivered the drink with a kind, brittle smile. And oh, was it perfect.

"So," looking at Jim perched on the armchair, "I hear you've been giving Lucius gray hairs."

There came that obstinate look. It definitely wasn't attractive. Or, worse, endearing.

"You're not going to find some secret cure beating up the crooks of Gotham."

"If you would just give me a name-"

"What are you gonna do? Kill them?"

Just for a moment, Jim looked away.

_"Jim-"_

"What am I supposed to do, Harvey? Let you die?"

"Yes! That's exactly what you're supposed to do!"

"Well, I can't!" Jim shouted, rocketing out of his seat. "Damn it, Harvey-"

"You really think killing them would work? You would go that far? Feelings don't die with people, Jim, I'd think we'd both had enough experience with that to know better."

"Then what's the answer?"

"Ugh, come here. You're spiraling, Jim."

Sitting on the cushion next to him, gathering him up tightly in his arms, Jim released a sound that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

"You're going to be okay, Jim."

"You're crying."

" _You're_ crying."

Jim huffed out a laugh. A hand brushed against Harvey's cheek, soft and strong and blistered and scarred, collecting a tear on its index finger. "We're both crying."

Lucius's words came back to Harvey, haunting him. Would confessing make a difference, besides making Jim feel worse? Was his love a burden Jim deserved to bear, despite everything that came with it?

"I love you, Jim."

The hand on his face disappeared into his matted hair, the one wrapped around his back tightened its grip. "I love you, too, Harvey."

He could leave it like that. Leave Jim with the knowledge he was cherished by something he, too, cherished.

"Not now," he croaked. More floral parasites, coming up and out, bloody, into Jim's lap, because Jim wouldn't let go, and Harvey was far too weak to manage a retreat.

But he moved back when Harvey pushed at his chest.

The disease had progressed fast in the last week. He was running out of time.

"It's you, Jim."

"Harvey?"

"It's you."

"It can't be."

"Well, it is. I'm sorry."

"Harvey," Jim said, his hands cupping Harvey's bearded cheeks, forcing eye contact, "it can't be me, because I love you."

"No, Jim-"

"I didn't realize until I heard you on the phone. It made it real, made me realize you were going to die and there was nothing I could do about it...But I have always loved you, Harvey."

Harvey grimaced. "You're confused. You can't be _in lo_ -"

Jim was kissing him. It was chaste, if lingering, and it was too much and not enough because _it didn't make sense_.

Jim released him, but Harvey clung, panting.

They spent the night together, cuddling close on Harvey's lumpy mattress, television blaring in the background. In the morning, Harvey felt--not fine, but better.

Apparently, it still counted as unrequited if you didn't know.

**Author's Note:**

> Harvey didn't get the one/many difference between misfortune and joy and it ended up...not coming up. 
> 
> In any case, I hope you like it, sunaddicted!


End file.
